Quote: JWarriors "I’m going to come in with an unpopular opinion here. But I don’t think French is good enough for NRL. He isn’t particularly skilful in terms of passing/kicking. He’s very fast and has a great step, but he isn’t the biggest/strongest and defences are generally better in the NRL than Super League.
I think he’s at his level right now if I’m honest. I see him as someone like a Amos Roberts or George Carmont who were never top NRL players, but were excellent in Super League.'"
Depends what you mean by ‘good enough for the NRL’. If you mean good enough as in good enough to play in the NRL, then he’s more than good enough. If you mean good enough as in would he terrorise teams like last night, then he’s probably not but not many are. What I never like to buy in to is this opinion that some British fans seem to have (I’m not saying you’re one by the way) that the NRL is full of super humans and that there are very few players over here who could manage to play in that competition. It really isn’t and we’ve seen plenty of examples recently of decent superleague players going over and excelling. Guys like Sutton, Hodgson, Cooper, Whitehead etc weren’t considered top players in their positions over here but all have smashed it in the NRL.
Going back to French, it may be as a winger or it may be at fullback but the guy has more than enough talent to hold a place in the NRL. Why he didn’t before stumps me. Maybe he lost confidence, maybe he’s just developed his game now or he may just have realised what he’s give up and has buckled down but I’ve seen some real average lads playing on the wings in the NRL this year and he’d walk in ahead of those guys. You compare him to Carmont and Amos Roberts and it’s probably a good comparison (especially Roberts) but you ask could he play in the NRL? Well both of those guys did and to a good standard, so French like those two could as well. Just checked and Amos Roberts scored 108 try’s in 177 NRL games so I wouldn’t downplay what a good player he was over there.
He is better suited to this league though and fingers crossed we pull off a miracle and keep him.